Post 4

Continuing with The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Tufte  goes into the specifics of distorting data and how to avoid it. He states that the main goal for an accurate depiction of the data is that the numerical representation matches the visual representation. Any discrepancy between the two is evidence of the author warping the data. Tufte cites a mathematical equation for the dishonesty in a graph: (lie factor) = (magnitude of effect in graph)/(magnitude of effect in data). In this equation ideally the lie factor is one. He emphasizes that graphs’ main goals should be showing data variation instead of design variation. Tufte then goes into the smaller instances of distortion such as warping data with design choices (offering the example below of a graph that has been ornately decorated, but not warped to convey a different conclusion) or differing dimensions, specifically the use of 2D or 3D representations of one-dimensional data. Another important part of conveying accurate data is ensuring the data is in the right context. Essentially, Tufte points out that data needs to be put in context of larger trends to fully understand the meaning.